Battlefield Wiki:Don't Delete Discussions
Discussions - whether on talk pages, forums or blogs - are an integral part of the running of a wiki. As such, we have a policy of not deleting discussions. Discussions Talk page discussions are a place for users to decide which direction an article should go in, what should and shouldn't be included, and to place any other kinds of comments. User talk pages are also important, being a place where users can communicate about a wide variety of things, as well as receiving warnings from other users regarding unhelpful edits, and messages from admins about blocks. Similarly, forums and blog posts are common places for users to interact, ask questions and share things. These discussions may end up outdated and seem useless. However, there are many reasons to keep them. Why keep discussions? There may seem to be no purpose, but keeping discussions can be very useful. For example: *Keeping old discussions may prevent the same debate from happening repeatedly. For example, if two different sources provide differing information, leaving the discussion may prevent it being brought up repeatedly. *They provide a record of a user's actions and discussions with other users. Although it is possible to view the page history, it is much easier to look over a discussion. When does this not apply? Obviously, some discussion may not necessarily be an integral part of any discussions taking place at a particular venue. For example, "OMG YOU GOT PWNED N00B" or "ZOHMIGOSH LAWLS!!!!!" may be deleted outright. Any posts containing extreme flaming, trolling, insults and/or offensive material may also be deleted. Anyone may suggest that destructive discussions be deleted, simply ask an admin to delete it. It is up to the admin's discression as to whether the content should be deleted. If it is decided that content should be deleted, it should be done by the following procedure. *Remove the relevant content *Save the page *Edit the page again *Add ::if only part of a discussion has been removed, instead add (this avoids breaking up the discussion with a level 2 heading) *Replace 'diff' with the diff URL from your removal (in the page's history) *Save again This will produce: Enforcing this policy DDD is usually broken by new or unregistered users who simply do not know any better, so we must assume good faith. Undo their deletion (but remember not to delete anything new that they may have added, like if they deleted an original post and posted a response to it) and tell them that they violated DDD on their talk page. However, make sure to provide a link to this page in that post, otherwise DDD will sound like meaningless gibberish to them. Archiving When discussions get outdated, or talk pages get too long, discussions can be archived to avoid having to delete them. Usually, forum posts can simply be archived using Template:Forumheaderarchive, while talk pages and other similar pages can simply be moved to subpages, where they are out of the way, but still accessible. If a page is deleted but the talk page needs to be preserved, consider moving it to the forums as an archived forum post rather than an orphaned page. Blogs are not archived, as they use a system of commenting rather than plain editing. For this reason, they should simply be left open. Archives should never be altered. If you want to resume a topic that has been previously archived, start a new discussion in the relevant place. Archives should utilize Template:Archive, which makes clear that these discussions should not be altered. For help with archiving, ask an admin. D